That tiny little fish

The pesky delta smelt and its lore

We were all treated to Trump’s “weave” on Joe Rogan yesterday, but one moment had me talking at my screen. “The fucking delta smelt,” that tiny little fish in California. Oh, do I have things to say about that little bastard, the delta smelt.

I must confess here, despite my manner of writing, that I have lived in California. I am all too familiar with this fiasco, and I wish Trump could have weaved an elegant tale about it. So, now it’s time to meander through this maze of environmental absurdity, amidst a historic drought that could have been alleviated. But before we crawl through the weeds of political insanity, you need to see a picture of these puny little beasts at scale.

Now we can continue. It all begins with the Central Valley Project. Rogan touched on this when he mentioned that California’s Central Valley was a massive lake before human intervention. Tulare Lake, as Joe quickly discovered, was not as vast as he expected. It was immense in the Pleistocene era, but not in historical memory. It was a modest lake by the 19th century when farmers began diverting its tributaries to irrigate their crops. The area is a basin and a lake still appears and recedes depending on rainwater and flooding. Tulare now exists as an endorheic lake to the chagrin of farmers who own land at this lowest point of the basin. The Tulare River that once fed the lake was diverted under Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who ordered the Army Corp of Engineers to transform California’s landscape with one of the most ambitious geo-engineering projects ever completed.

Tulare Lake 1853 versus 2023

Human ingenuity saw dry regions of California metamorphose into fertile farmland and brought much-needed water down to the Greater Los Angeles County. The feat achieved was a marvel of engineering that I could go on my own weave about — The channeling of the Los Angeles River which would otherwise flood half the city during winter is another marvel along with the complex underground storm drain system that keeps the basin dry — but I’ll spare you the ramble. The map below has a basic overview of the workings of the Central Water Project and the newer State Water Project. This series of aqueducts, dams, pumping stations, and reservoirs keep the desert landscape hospitable. It’s an incredibly complex system with oversight distributed between federal and state authorities.

Source: https://www.mdpi.com/2079-9276/7/1/12

The geo-engineering of California worked in its time, but a period of drought, issues with agricultural management, and an ever-growing population put pressure on this system. Keep in mind that the majority of precipitation occurs in the northern part of the state. The goal of California’s ambitious water project is to divert that precious northern water southward to quench an arid region’s considerable thirst. Our piscine controversy arises in relation to various proposals regarding the creation of an additional channel for the system that would supply extra water and alleviate the frequent shortages.